In a real “dog that caught the car” moment, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) was left with nothing but excuses on Wednesday when a Newsmax host pressed him on why he doesn’t just subpoena presidential scion Hunter Biden.
“It’s very difficult,” Comer, who has led the charge for impeachment, said at one point.
After months of MAGA caterwauling, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy finally launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, despite the fact that Republicans have yet to provide any concrete evidence of wrongdoing on the president’s part. Additionally, McCarthy went back on his word to hold a House vote to authorize the inquiry, likely due to the fact that he currently doesn’t have enough support from within his own caucus.
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One of the GOP lawmakers tapped by McCarthy to lead the inquiry, Comer has pushed wild allegations that the president is the mastermind of the “Biden crime family” and accused him of accepting millions of dollars in bribes from foreign oligarchs to impact U.S. policymaking.
At the same time, though, Comer has been unable to provide any documentation linking Hunter Biden’s business dealings to the president or any “hard proof” that the president received any foreign bribes. Even Fox News hosts have told the Kentucky lawmaker he’s shown “no evidence that Joe Biden did anything illegally” and that he can’t explain what policy decisions of Biden’s were impacted by this supposed corruption.
During a Wednesday morning appearance on Newsmax, the MAGA channel that has helped whip up the GOP’s impeachment obsession, Comer had no answers when anchor Rob Finnerty simply asked him why he didn’t haul the president’s son before Congress.
“Why not subpoena him and have him testify on Capitol Hill, even if he doesn’t say anything? That’s going to be uncomfortable for the president to have his son testifying on the Hill,” Finnerty wondered.
The oversight chairman, who has been investigating the Bidens for nearly a year now, immediately demurred.
“Right. Well, when I announced the investigation early on, I said we’re going to follow the money,” he replied. “And Hunter Biden is more than welcome to come in front of the committee. If he wants to clear his good name, if he wants to come and say, ‘You know, these weren’t 20 shell companies, they actually did something,’ he’s more than—he’s invited today.”
“He’s not going to volunteer to do that. We both know that. But if you subpoena him, he then has to,” the Newsmax morning host retorted.
“Well, he can fight the subpoena in court. It’s very difficult,” Comer shot back with more excuses. “You know, I think if it were easy to get a president or their son in front of a House committee, the Jan. 6 Committee probably would have done that with Donald Trump.”
Conceding that was a “good point,” Finnerty then pointed out that the president’s son is “different” and “everyone always says Hunter Biden is a private citizen.” He also told Comer that it’s “not like you’re you’re subpoenaing” the president at this very moment.
The GOP congressman, seemingly in an effort to get the usually sympathetic Newsmax anchor off his back, then insisted that he could possibly get around to it in short order.
“But what we found in the last few weeks is he was communicating back and forth with the government about Ukrainian policy, which is a huge problem for Joe Biden,” Comer declared. “Look, I would say we will get to the point very soon where we subpoena Hunter Biden. But at this point right now, I just want the bank records because we’re following the money, and our concern is that Joe Biden was, in fact, benefiting from these schemes, from these illegal, corrupt activities of his son and brother.”
Notably, after obtaining thousands of pages of financial records from the Biden family, which have yet to show any link to the president, Comer and Republicans are now arguing that they don’t actually need “to show payments directly to the President to show corruption.” The House GOP’s own hand-picked witnesses have also testified that the president was not involved in his son’s business dealings. (Though Comer did skip that interview, so one could forgive him for not remembering this.)
Furthermore, while Comer has asserted that he’s identified $20 million of foreign payments flowing to the Biden family through “shell companies”—most of which have legitimate business interests—the vast majority of that money was paid to Hunter Biden’s non-family business partners. And none of those funds went to Joe Biden.
